The illicit use of prescription painkillers has increased dramatically in recent years, particularly among men ages 18 to 49, according to a new report.

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Data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health between 2002 and 2010 showed a nearly 75% rise in the nonmedical use of prescription painkillers for more than 200 days in the previous year.

Note that use among adolescents and women decreased, while chronic use (>200 days) increased by >100% among men between 2002 and 2010.

The illicit use of prescription painkillers has increased dramatically in recent years, particularly among men ages 18 to 49, according to a new report.

Between 2002 and 2010, there was a 74.6% overall increase in the number of individuals taking prescription painkillers chronically -- on more than 200 days each year -- for nonmedical purposes, according to Christopher M. Jones, PharmD, of the CDC in Atlanta.

And among men, chronic use increased by 105.3%, Jones reported in a research letter in Archives of Internal Medicine.

"This finding is important because it parallels increases in overdose deaths, treatment admission, and other negative effects associated with opioid pain relievers in recent years," he observed.

For instance, in 2009 alone there were 15,597 fatal overdoses involving drugs such as hydrocodone and oxycodone.

To see if this skyrocketing rate of fatal overdoses was accompanied by an overall increase in nonmedical use of these painkillers, Jones analyzed data from the annual National Survey on Drug Use and Health.

In this survey, individuals who report using these drugs were asked to estimate how many days during the previous years they did so.

The analysis showed no increase in the number of people reporting any nonmedical use of prescription painkillers, or use on 1 to 200 days in the past year.

But the total number of days of use rose by 35% to 612,829,084 in 2010 from 451,031,411 in 2002.

The annual rates of men using these drugs more than 200 days each year rose by 5.1% (P<0.01), the researcher reported.

Moreover, when the data on men's nonmedical use of prescription painkillers were broken down according to age group, these annual increases were identified:

Ages 18 to 25, 7.4% (P<0.01)

Ages 26 to 34, 5% (P<0.05)

Ages 35 to 49, 4% (P<0.01)

Among women, the only significant change was in the percentage reporting use on 1 to 29 days in the previous year, which fell by 13.5% (P<0.01).

Overall, individuals ages 26 to 34 using the drugs for more than 200 days increased by 81%, while the increase among those ages 35 to 49 was 134.6%.

Rates of chronic use also rose, although not significantly, among people 50 and older.

One "encouraging" finding, Jones reported, was a decrease in use by individuals ages 12 to 17.

Among these adolescents, use on 1 to 29 days decreased by 17.4% (P<0.01) and use for more than 200 days fell by 25.7%.

But the sum totals of 4.6 million people taking the drugs for more than 30 days and almost 1 million using painkillers for nonmedical reasons for more than 200 days per year are "concerning," he observed.

"The annual average estimate of 613 million person-days of [past-year nonmedical use] implies that each of the 257 million opioid prescriptions dispensed in the United States annually contributes on average to more than 2 days of [nonmedical use]," he stated.

These findings are a warning signal that greater efforts are needed for public health authorities to focus efforts on preventing the morbidity and mortality associated with illicit pain reliever drug-taking, and particularly among men and high-using age groups, he concluded.

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